Labour service (Hungary)

Labour service (Hungarian: munkaszolgálat) was required of "political unreliable" and Jewish men in Hungary during World War II after they were prohibited from serving in the regular armed forces by passage of the Hungarian anti-Jewish laws. In Hungary, Jews comprised over eight percent of the population, and the government imposed an alternative to military service. Labour service was forced labour, performed by labour battalions conscripted by the German-allied Hungarian regime primarily from Hungarian Jewish men during World War II. These units were an outgrowth of World War I units, when Jews served in the Hungarian armed forces along with Christians, as in Germany and other European countries. The Fascist, Nazi-allied Regime commanders treated the Jewish units with extreme cruelty, abuse, and brutality. Men who worked in mine quarries were frequently pushed to their deaths off the man-made cliffs and embankments. These units were stationed all over Hungary, including 130,000 men at the Eastern Front in Ukraine, where most of the men died. The gendarmes and Army men who guarded these "slaves" were mostly members of the Nyilas fascist anti-Semitic political party.

The badly fed and poorly clothed units were initially assigned to perform heavy construction work within Hungary. With Germany's attack on Russia, Hungary officials sent most of these units into Ukraine for additional forced labour work. They were subjected to atrocities, such as marching into mine fields to clear the area so that the regular troops could advance, and death by torture of prominent servicemen. Some Munkaszolgálat units were entirely wiped out; others had as few as 5% of their members survive the war.

The famous poet Miklós Radnóti and writer Antal Szerb died during labour service. Ordinary people, such as Miklos Farkas born in Turcz in 1909, in the Northern Transylvanian county of Szatmár, were among the few survivors of their units. His unit was last based in Siegendorf, Austria, having previously been detailed to a stone quarry for most of the war. At Siegendorf, as the war came to an end, the guns of the advancing Russian forces could be heard by the Nyilas (Hungarian Arrow Cross troops who guarded the Jewish slaves.) They decided to march most of the men out of the camp.

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Wikipedia